Ministerial Instructions No. 0744/MONRE on Hazardous Waste Management.

These Instructions of the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment aims to issues the following objectives: to classify hazardous waste and ensure that public and private stakeholders in the sectors who generate hazardous waste and the communities concerned have the same understanding on the implementation approaches related to the import, export, transfer, storage, use, recycling and disposal of hazardous waste in the entire country, which aims to prevent and reduce the generation of hazardous waste and operate advance notification regulations and approval procedures by the competent authority and the National Focal Point of Basel Convention. Hazardous waste management principles include: 1) Law Enforcement; 2) Use tools, mechanisms and technical measures in hazardous waste management such as the lowest waste generation technology or disposal, and consumption and recycling technology; 3) Control the numbers for import, export, transfer, preservation, consumption, recycling and disposal; 4) Prevent and reduce hazardous waste generation in both quantity and hazard; 5) Ensure the participation of communities; 6) Ensure the existence of hazardous waste treatment and disposal areas.
Hazardous waste classification (article 37 of the Environment Protection Law) has categorized waste into two types: a) General wastes b) Toxic and hazardous wastes Hazardous waste that contains one or more toxic substances or 2 characteristics or releases substances that have corresponding characteristics are categorized as follows: 1) Explosive; 2) Flammable; 3) Oxidizing; 4) Toxic or harmful to health (acute or chronic, irritating, carcinogenic, mutagenic); 5) Infectious; 6) Corrosive; 7) Toxic to the ecosystem (eco-toxic). Moreover, boxes or containers contaminated with toxic and hazardous chemicals are considered as toxic and hazardous waste.
These Instructions are divided into seven Chapters as follows: Objectives and principles (Chap. I); Hazardous waste classification and concentration (Chap. II); Obligation for hazardous waste management (Chap. III); Hazardous waste or other waste import, export and transit (Chap. IV); Monitoring and reporting of hazard waste (Chap. V); Roles of Natural Resources and Environment (Chap. VI); and Final Provision (Chap. VII). Appendixes deal with the following sectors: Hazardous waste controlled by Basel Convention which Lao PDR is a party managed as subgroup; Information to be provided on notification; Destruction procedures of Hazardous or other waste, Operation that may lead to recovery, recycling.